The invention concerns an ultrasonic liquid atomizer with a piezoelectric transducer element mechanically coupled to an amplitude transformer (also known as "horn" or "blowpipe") and with an atomizing disk mounted to the free end of the amplitude transformer.
Piezoelectric ultrasonic oscillators to atomize liquids are known. The state of the art illustratively includes the periodical TECHNISCHE INFORMATIONEN FUER DIE INDUSTRIE, November 1978, issued by VALCO Co. of Hamburg. Ultrasonic liquid atomizers of the type under discussion consists of a piezoelectric transducer element which in one conventional embodiment is solidly coupled to an amplitude transformer (so-called horn). The transducer element performs the conversion from electrical into mechanical energy, while the "horn" provides amplitude amplification. In order to attain as high an amplitude as possible, the atomizer furthermore must be vibrating near its series resonance.
The U.S. Pat. No. 3,400,892 and the German Pat. Nos. 2,831,553 and 2,137,083 disclose further ultrasonic liquid atomizers of the initially cited kind.
The known ultrasonic liquid atomizers operate with amplitude transformers of which the lengths are at least .lambda./4 (for instance the U.S. Pat. No. 3,400,892) up to an integral multiple of .lambda./4 (German Pat. Nos. 2,831,553 and 2,137,083). The term .lambda./4 here denotes a quarter of the vibration wavelength of the atomizer disk.